


A Relevant Start

by pettiot



Series: Professionals Timeline [5]
Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-12
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:01:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: First day at training.  Doyle meets Bodie.
Series: Professionals Timeline [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600894
Kudos: 1





	A Relevant Start

  


'—ay. Ray. Ray. _Ray._ R—'

'Yeah, _what!_ '

'Hmm?' The man had dark cropped hair, good-looking in a bland, milquetoast, don't move too much or it'll wrinkle way. He affected — probably affected — a double take. 'Can I help you? You've dropped your pencil.'

Doyle had, too, collateral flung from the arm of his chair as he spun to glare at the irritant sitting behind him, notepad slithering away to the opposite side.

Impassively. 'You were calling me.' _Incessantly,_ you fucker.

'Oh.' A smothered grin, an earnest expression, both begging for a fist. 'It's Ray Doyle, isn't it? Sorry, I wasn't calling you—' He looked past Ray's shoulder, rapt. 'Ay. Ay. _AY!_ Murph! Over here!'

Unwillingly, Doyle experienced a mix of chagrin, irritation, and begrudging amusement. It had been a good few years since he had to live through minor or major hazing. Still, he was not so old and comfortable that he couldn't bear it with reasonable tolerance again.

He had to stand and bend over to reach for his pencil, which had rolled into the aisle between the chairs, unnoticed among the several new and old agents circulating as they hunted for seats next to old associates made new. No one who Doyle recognised, unsurprisingly, but he'd gone through the first two weeks of testing with the aforementioned Murphy, who was army, which meant the schoolboy sitting behind Doyle like was too—

Oh my _God_ , he did not just—

Doyle straightened abruptly, pencil forgotten, and whirled. Immediately upon which, he smothered his violent outrage.

Schoolyard politics. Minimise the reaction, or suffer the consequences of being an easily riled mark forever, good for amusement potential whenever the days grew dull: wind Doyle up, set him off, sit back and smugly profit.

'Yeah, what now?'

The army bloke's blank — slightly disappointed? — expression was completed by a mouth not quite closed. 'You had a bit of fluff.'

'Oh, right. Cheers. Spoiling the line of my trousers, was it? Can't be having that.'

Gormlessness shifted gears, into smug self-acclaim. Soldier-boy dusted his hands together. 'That's what I thought, too. All a part of the service.' A comradely nod, brisk and cheerful. 'Any time. _Trust me_.'

Doyle pondered the man's emphasis with suspicion.

Everyone was rapidly finding their seats, cheap chair legs scraping on thin vinyl. Cowley must be coming in. Doyle took a slow breath, forgot about his pencil, and inched warily into his own chair.

  



End file.
